Edmonton Eskimos running back John White (30) runs for some yards during the second-half of CFL football action against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Hamilton on Friday, October 28, 2016.Peter Power / THE CANADIAN PRESS

The Sunday forecast — which calls for 12 degrees and sunny skies in Hamilton — suggests climate-illogical conditions for an Eskimo playoff game.

They’re used to slogging through snow out west in November. But that’s track-meet weather. Those are air show conditions. And if the meteorologists responsible for that call are more accurate than political pollsters, it’s likely to benefit an Eskimo offence that found its feet, quite literally, in the final third of the Canadian Football League season.

“The mix that we had the last six games is what I’d prefer to have,” said head coach Jason Maas, talking pass and run. “When we’re balanced is when we’re best. I think at the beginning of the year we were pass heavy. Towards the middle of the year we got closer to 50/50. … If I look at our last six games, I’ll bet you we’re pretty close to 50/50, which is hard to do in the CFL.”

It was closer to 70/30 in favour of the passing game, but we take his point. They were nearer a balance in the final half of the year, and the results were better. Their two-game set with Hamilton showed it, too. When the Esks beat the Tabbies in October, they ran 21 times and tried 31 passes. When they lost to the Ticats early in the year, the offence was skewed heavily toward the air attack, 42 pass attempts to 15 running plays.

One-dimensional offences are vulnerable, and everybody in the igloo knows it, but with new coaches, players and systems in place, they relied heavily on what worked instantly — quarterback Mike Reilly throwing to receivers Adarius Bowman and Derel Walker. Three games in, with a 2-1 record, they weren’t worried that the run game had produced just 125 total yards.

But they were soon 2-4, the ground game was still an afterthought, and when they ran for less than 75 yards during that stretch, they were 1-4.

“I just don’t think we had that many opportunities at the start of the season to run the ball,” said all-star offensive lineman Justin Sorensen. “We’d get stuffed the first two times and then we’d be scared to go back to running the ball. But that’s on the offensive line. If you don’t get yards in the first couple plays, every offensive co-ordinator is scared to run the ball. The key is to have success at the start of the game running the ball.”

They eventually got it going and managed to average 103.7 yards rushing per game through the full season, second only to B.C. When the Esks were under that average, their record was 2-7. When they hit that mark or went higher, they were 8-1.

“We always talked about trying to get to that balance because we understand that when your running attack can be effective, it makes everything easier,” said Reilly. “It makes the offensive line’s job easier. It gets them excited about firing off the ball and it stops the D line from being able to pin their ears back, it stops the rush from the linebackers.

“It takes the stress off of the pass game and it also puts a stress on the defence. It allows us to maintain drives a little easier.”

And it lets the Eskimos get full value out of John White. The guy is part running back, part linebacker, all emotion and energy. He loves to carry the mail, but he was an ornery cornerback as a kid — a “get in your grill corner” as he put it — and those defensive instincts never left. He enjoys hitting people and said he offered to join the Eskimos’ kickoff cover team.

“So I can go down there and smack some.”

That’s not going to happen, but he will get his licks in on pass protection.

“I play the game kind of like a chess match. It takes four quarters and some of those guys die out toward the end of the half just because I’m hitting them so hard.”

He should wind up as one of the more valuable weapons on the Eskimo side of Sunday’s tilt, if recent history is an indication. In the five games they won down the stretch, they ran for at least 118 yards. In the one game they lost, they managed just 86 yards on the ground.

“I think we’ve got the right formula,” said White. “We started off passing it at first, but once we got to the second half of the season, you could just see a turn in our game play. It makes us unstoppable.”

Perhaps. Hamilton was fourth in the league against the run this year, surrendering an average of 80.4 yards per game, but the Eskimos ran it up on them in October, putting 159 rushing yards on the board in a narrow three-point win. White accounted for 132 of those.

“He runs the ball hard and he plays with emotion,” said Sorensen. “He does a great job. If we open holes for him, he hits them hard and he runs guys over in the second level. I think the key is giving him a little bit of space and he’ll make things happen after that.”

If that’s an accurate forecast, the Eskimos’ balanced offence should tip the scales in their favour.

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